Grace for the Race

How would you define the way you have been handling the Scriptures lately?  Would you say you have been searching them? . . . Skimming through them? . . . Or skipping them altogether?

The Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.  (Acts 17:11 NIV)

The Bereans did not skip the Scriptures, nor did they skim through them.  The Bereans searched the Scriptures and in so doing, set a noble example for every child of the Most High God.  To search the Scriptures is to study them and sift through them slowly, looking for every speck of gold contained within them.  Charles Spurgeon once said, “No man who merely skims the book of God can profit thereby; we must dig and mine until we obtain the hid treasure.  The door of the Word only opens to the key of diligence.”

If we really understood the Bible to be God’s love letter to us, would we dare skim through the Scriptures . . . or even skip them altogether?  Heaven forbid!  We confess what we truly believe about the Word of God with our lives, in the way we come to the Scriptures and search them, and the way we consider the Christ, who is revealed within every page.

On the road to Emmaus, Jesus rebuked two of His disciples, who were thoroughly dejected after the Christ was crucified and buried.  “O foolish ones,” the risen Savior said, “and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?”  Then, as He walked along the road with the two men, the living Word held a Bible study: “Beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, [Jesus] interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.”  Later, the two disciples marveled, saying to each other, “Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures?” (Luke 24:25-27, 32.)

One of the most amazing things I have learned over the years in searching through the Scriptures is that no matter how often I have read a particular passage, there is always something new to be uncovered!  The reason this happens for every serious student of the Scriptures is because the Word of God is living and active and sharper than any double-edged sword (Hebrews 4:12).  All other books, no matter how well written, are dead.  Only the Bible is God-breathed (2 Timothy 3:16) and alive, and it makes us more alive every time we come to it with a heart set on searching its pages for a fresh encounter with God.

When we realize the truth that every page of Scripture testifies to the truth of our precious Savior and Lord, is there anything that could keep us from searching them often?  If our vision and view of the Gospel is clear, there is nothing that could stand in our way.  The more we read the Bible, the more we see Jesus; and the more we see of Jesus, the more we read the Bible.  There is no more compelling motivation than that to cause us to diligently search the Scriptures . . . and keep on searching them.  The truths of the Gospel draw us to its well, that we may drink in all of its living water.

Regardless of where this message finds you today, open the Book and let it speak into your life.  It will meet you in your place of need.  It will answer your questions.  It will calm your fears.  It will give you the strength to overcome every obstacle that stands in your way.  It will be the death of doubt and discouragement.  There is milk for those who are babes in searching and meat for those who have spent a lifetime doing it.  There is something for everyone who is willing to search and that something is the only thing we really need in both life and death . . . or more accurately, Someone . . .  and His name is Jesus Christ.  As one writer once said, “May [the Bible] be our pillow at night and our guiding light by day.”

This is the Gospel.  This is grace for your race.  NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!

Steve Brown of Key Life Ministries is a good friend of mine.  He tells the following story, which makes it clear how human beings will do anything and everything possible to avoid the reality of death and pain and suffering.

It happened a number of years ago on a flight from Miami to Los Angeles.  We were all enjoying a happy trip, since most of the passengers were returning from cruises.  They had their trinkets in their hands, tans on their faces, and great memories to share when they arrived home.

And then the lady in the aisle next to my seat died.

Everybody got real quiet while the flight attendants asked if there were a doctor on the flight.  Two or three came forward, and while they did their best to save her, she still died.  The pilot landed the plane in Dallas and directed his passengers to disembark while the corpse was taken from the plane to a waiting hearse.  Then we all reboarded the plane for the remainder of our flight to Los Angeles.

The crowd had changed into a somber bunch.  Most people try to avoid death and all thoughts of it.  But to be honest, it is hard to do that while encased in an aluminum tube cruising at 34,000 feet.  There just isn’t anyplace to run.

I approached one of the flight attendants.  “I’m a clergyman,” I said, “and deal with death a lot.  If you would like me to help, please feel free to ask.”

“Thanks for your offer, Reverend,” she said, smiling, “but we’re going to give the passengers free drinks.”

Can you believe that?  If you can get them drunk enough, they won’t have to deal with the reality of death.  Just souse ‘em up.

I fear that Christians sometimes do that too.  Only we don’t use alcohol; we use religious clichés, false theology, and Christian denial.

Wow!  Let’s give people alcohol instead of a faith that can make sense of the reality of pain and suffering and death, and even provide hope and encouragement!

There was a time in this world when there was no pain and suffering and death—but Adam and Eve changed all that.  Created by God for God, the first man and woman opted to remove God from the center of their lives and disobeyed the one and only “Thou shalt not . . .” He had given them.  By engaging in that horrific act of cosmic treason, our first parents plunged all of creation into a sickening downward spiral that leads to the pit of hell.  And that is why there is pain and suffering and death in this world.

To be sure, the world is broken and so are all the people in it . . . including you and me!  But God did not leave us to wallow in damaged despair; He sent His beloved Son on a rescue mission to make everything that is broken whole again; all that is evil will be made righteous; every crooked thing will be made straight!

But before Jesus returns and finishes what He started in making all things new, we will all face the dark reality of pain and suffering and death.  We can pretend it doesn’t exist; we may try to inoculate ourselves from it or anesthetize ourselves to it, but this will not shelter us from ugly reality.  I am sure that the hearse waiting to take the dead woman off Steve Brown’s plane didn’t have luggage racks on it.  Do you know why?  Because she wasn’t coming back!

Since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead.  For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.  (1 Corinthians 15:22, 23)

I don’t know the spiritual condition of the woman who died on that plane, but if she was not in Christ, she is suffering unimaginable torment in hell today.  When we are in Christ, we can face pain and sorrow and death with the confident assurance that God is working all of it for our good and His glory.  When death comes for us, in the instant we are absent from our body, we shall be present with our Lord—forevermore!

Make no mistake, we will all come face-to-face with pain and sorrow and death.  These are fires through which we all must pass.  But for the Christian believer, these trials will be vastly different from what is experienced by the unbeliever.  Only the Gospel will free us, when facing pain and sorrow and death, to say: “You keep the free drinks; I’ll keep my faith in Jesus!”

This is the Gospel.  This is grace for your race.  NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!

We live in a society that is in mad pursuit of the good life.  Never fully satisfied with what we have, we are always on the lookout for something better.  Restlessness is the daily reality for many people—both outside and inside of the church.  James identified this problem in stark language:

What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you?  You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.  (James 4:1-4)

There’s really only one thing that will cure us from this grasping for “more.”  When we have a clear vision of what God has called us to and the courage to walk into it, we will find contentment, regardless of the cost or circumstance.

Years ago, when the Standard Oil Company was looking for a representative in the Far East, they approached a missionary and offered him $10,000 to take the job.  He quickly turned down the offer.  They raised it to $25,000, and he turned it down again.  They raised it to $50,000, and he rejected it once more without giving it a second thought.  “What’s wrong?” they asked.  He replied, “Your price is all right, but your job is too small.”  Every job is too small when it is not the job Jesus has called you to do to expand the cause of His kingdom in this world.

Now, don’t run off thinking I’m telling you to be a missionary because everything else is too small.  Not true!  The job at the oil company would have been a wonderful job . . . if it had been God’s calling for this missionary.  But it was not.  This man knew so well what God had called him and equipped him to do, and he was so focused on doing it, that he had the fortitude to refuse a job that would have made his life a whole lot more comfortable and secure.

Only a small percentage of Christians are called by God to be missionaries in the sense of travelling to a foreign land.  To be sure, we are all on mission for God, declaring and demonstrating the transforming power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  And for most of us, that mission is to be lived out right where we have been planted . . . whether we have been called to be a butcher, a baker, or a candlestick maker.  Our calling is the place where we are growing and serving our Lord, regardless of the offers that come our way and no matter how much greener the grass may look on the other side of the fence.  This missionary who turned down Standard Oil knew that nothing less than God’s call in his life was worth contemplating, considering, or carrying out.

What about you?  In what vineyard has God planted you to grow and flourish and expand the cause of His kingdom?  If we have never thought much about our calling and where we fit into God’s perfect plan, we may find ourselves careening from wall to wall throughout life, going from one job to another job.  I have spent many hours counseling men who have lived this reality, which has left them reeling.  Only when we are doing what God has designed us to be doing, based on the way He has hard-wired us, will we be able to say in the face of a seemingly better offer: “No thanks, it’s too small!”

Dr. D. James Kennedy, the man who brought me into full-time vocational ministry, told me that someone asked him if he had ever considered running for president of the United States.  He promptly replied, “Why would I want to take a step down from the greatest job in the world?”  Dr. Kennedy knew what God had called and gifted him to do, and once that truth seized him, he could not consider any other place of service in the world, even if that place was located at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.  It simply would have been a job that was too small!

When you are doing what you have been created to do, there is nothing that can pull you away from it.  At this level of living, you are not only in your calling, but your calling is in you.  Remember, every job is too small when it is a job you have not been called to do or you are not doing for the glory of God.  Someone once asked me if I considered any job to be menial labor.  “Absolutely!” I said emphatically.  “It is the job you are working at for your own glory, to expand the reach of your own little kingdom, and where Jesus simply cannot be found.”

But this is not for you!  If Jesus is not calling you away from your current station in life, grow where He has planted you.  This will be for your good and for God’s glory and to the benefit and blessing of everyone you meet.

This is the Gospel.  This is grace for your race.  NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!

When your mind is not focused on anything in particular, where does it go?  What do you find yourself thinking?  Because God is renewing our minds, which in turn enlarges our hearts and ultimately bends our will to align with His, we should be able to say that our minds turn (more often than not) to God.  To be sure, from time to time our minds drift on to the mudflats of life and we think what we ought not to be thinking.  But as the Gospel becomes more real in our lives, our minds begin to migrate more and more frequently into Gospel gardens.

Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.  (Philippians 4:8-9 NIV)

The great musician Franz Joseph Haydn of the classical period understood this exhortation and lived it out because of his faith in Christ.  When asked why his church music was so cheerful, Haydn replied, “When I think upon God, my heart is so full of joy that the notes dance and leap, as it were, from my pen, and since God has given me a cheerful heart I will serve Him with a cheerful spirit.”  Haydn’s joy was rooted in God; the more he thought about God, the more joyful was his experience in life.  Haydn knew what to think about . . . and His name is Jesus Christ.

How often we should be able to say to others, “When I think upon God, my heart overflows with thanksgiving for all He has done for me.”  The challenge for all of us is we let ourselves get caught up in what I call “stinking thinking”—we do just the opposite of what Paul instructs us to do.  We think about whatever is wrong, what is defiled and unlovely.  We reflect on what we don’t have rather than what we do have.  We focus on what we have done wrong rather than what He has done right.  This is precisely where the devil wants to direct our thoughts—toward that which is false and fleshly, rather than toward Him who is true and triune.

But this is not for you!  And Paul confirms it with another inspired instruction:

Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.  (Colossians 3:2)

When we set our minds on things above, we won’t be pulled down by things below.  Regardless of how strong the storm winds blow, we remain upright and on course.  Regardless of how hot the fiery furnace of affliction flares, we are unharmed.  Regardless of how deep the current of corruption surges, we are unmoved. When we think about the things of God, we are strengthening our minds to rise above the challenges of daily living.  Sure, the fight is fierce and the battle rages.  But we already have the strength we need to become more than conquerors (Romans 8:37) . . .  we have that strength in Jesus.  We need only to focus our attention more and more on Him, and we will be less and less affected by whatever is going on around us.

The next time you catch yourself engaging in “stinking thinking,” pause and reflect on the finished work of Christ.  He has already won the victory over whatever trial or temptation you are facing.  Paul said, “Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 15:57).  The more time we spend thinking about the victory Jesus has already won for us on the cross, the more we will live like victors rather than victims.  Think about these things . . . won’t you?

Oh, Victory in Jesus, my Savior forever
He sought me and he bought me with His redeeming blood
He loved me ere I knew Him, and all my love is due Him
He plunged me to Victory, beneath the cleansing flood.

This is the Gospel.  This is grace for your race.  NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!

That statement is hard to imagine in the culture we live in today, isn’t it?  The wisdom of the world tells us that there is nothing better than the life we are currently living.  How did the old commercial say it?  “Fellas, it just doesn’t get any better than this.”  With the belief that this life is all there is, we are told to eat, drink, be merry, and “grab for all the gusto” on this side of the grave, because there is nothing on the other side.

Well, the wisdom of the Word declares that the world’s wisdom is folly, because there is something on the other side of the grave.  There is a judgment . . . there is a heaven . . . there is a hell . . . and there is something infinitely better than this life and what it has to offer!

Your lovingkindness is better than life.  (Psalm 63:3 NKJV)

What would it take for you to be able to say what King David said in this psalm . . . and mean it?  Is there anything you are holding on to more tightly than Jesus?  Is there anything you have right now that if you lost it, your life would be turned upside down?  Only the truths of the Gospel can ravish us to such an extent that we are ready, willing, and able to forsake everything this life has to offer for the One who has given to us everything we have.  Only the truths of the Gospel can convince us that only God can satisfy us—fully, finally, and forever.  The author of The Pilgrims Progress knew this truth and lived it out at great cost.

For more than 12 years English Christian writer and preacher, John Bunyan, was imprisoned while his second wife Elizabeth cared for their six children.  His crime for which he was put in chains: preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ without state sanction.  On a number of occasions the magistrate would have let him go if he had promised to stop preaching.  But he would not.  John said he would remain in prison until the moss grew on his eyelids rather than fail to do what the Almighty had commanded him to do.  He said that parting from his dear wife and children, “has often been to me in this place as the pulling of the flesh from my bones.”  This was especially true with regard to his eldest daughter who was blind and was given to him through his first wife who had died.

For John Bunyan, there was something indeed better than life: the loving-kindness of his Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.  He chose the loving-kindness of his God over his freedom.  He chose the loving-kindness of his God over being with his family.  He chose the loving-kindness of his God in spite of intense persecution and prison.  He refused to deny his God, though to do so would have brought him great worldly benefit.  It’s hard for us, living in this day and age, to imagine living with that kind of personal peace and security in the midst of such persecution, but here was a man so sold-out for Christ that the confession of his life proclaimed that it was better to live in the love of God than to live with his wife and children!

Only the love of God can satisfy your deepest longings.  Only the loving-kindness of God can answer your prayers, solve your problems, and overcome your obstacles.  It is only when we want the presence of God more than anything else in life that we will be able to hold loosely everything we have at present . . . because we are looking forward to all that has been promised us in the future.

Because the best is yet to come, what we have now is only a shadow of what is to come.  Our greatest joy, our deepest affection, and our highest love in this life pales in comparison to what awaits us when we get home and stand in the presence of the One whose loving-kindness truly is better than life.

This is the Gospel.  This is grace for your race.  NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!

I’m going to try to capture the meaning of the psalmist, who describes the greatness of God as something no one can fathom.

I will exalt you, my God the King;
I will praise your name forever and ever.
Every day I will praise you
and extol your name forever and ever.

Great is the Lord and most worthy of praise;
his greatness no one can fathom.  (Psalm 145:1-3)

A fathom is a unit of length equal to 6 feet, used principally in the measurement and specification of marine depths.  To be fathomless is to be too deep to be measured; to be bottomless.  Think about that for a moment.  The depth of the greatness of our God is beyond measurement.  It is, in a word, fathomless!

• His holiness . . . fathomless
• His glory . . . fathomless
• His love . . . fathomless
• His mercy . . . fathomless
• His grace . . . fathomless
• His goodness . . . fathomless
• His kindness . . . fathomless
• His forgiveness . . . fathomless
• His forbearance . . . fathomless

Of course, we could go on forever.  The fathomless Father who called us out of darkness into His marvelous light (1 Peter 2:9) has given us a fathomless faith.  Faith in Christ is a bottomless sea of unimaginable joy, one that we need only to dip our toes into each day to be swallowed up by it.  Imagine diving in with wholehearted abandon and the fathomless joy that should be the confession of our lives.  If we would dare to do such a thing: everyone who knew us would know we know Jesus; everyone who lived with us would know we live with Jesus; everyone who worked with us would know we work for Jesus.

Faith in Christ has called us into a fathomless future where our blood is oxygenated by His story and our sweat is poured out for His glory.  It’s been said that the future is so bright, you gotta wear shades!  The care of our Lord for every aspect of our lives is so immeasurable that nothing we do is insignificant to Him.  No labor is menial when it is done for Jesus.  No act of kindness goes unnoticed.  No ministry of mercy is ignored.  If the number of hairs on your head matters to God so much that he actually counts them (Matthew 10:30), then surely there is nothing you can do for Him that doesn’t matter, regardless of how inconsequential it might seem to you.

The fathomless greatness of our God should get us out of bed each day, rejoicing over the privilege we have in serving so great a God.  Who can measure the depth of the love that has been showered upon us by the One who took our place on that cross?  Shall we return it lukewarm, served up with half our heart?  God forbid!

Whether we find ourselves journeying through sun-filled days or storm-filled nights, may our lament be that we have not loved Him enough, no matter how hard we have tried to convince ourselves that we have done so with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength.

Thank God for the fathomless faithfulness of our Lord . . . even when our faithfulness is only six inches deep!

This is the Gospel.  This is grace for your race.  NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!

In 1864, Jules Verne penned the extremely popular science fiction novel, A Journey to the Center of the Earth. The story involves a professor who believes there are volcanic tubes going toward the center of the Earth and sets out to find them.  Along the way, he and his companions encounter prehistoric animals, natural hazards, and other dangers.  In 2008, Journey to the Center of the Earth came to life in 3D in the movies—the third time this story was dramatized in the cinema.

QUESTION: If a movie titled A Journey to the Center of Your Life was made about your life, what would the viewers find when they got to your center?

At the center of every life there are only two possible destinations: one is the self and the other is the Savior.  By nature, we all live SELF-CENTERED lives.  Our Number One goal is self-fulfillment.  With self firmly established in the center of our existence, we live for our dreams, our goals, our preferences, our agendas, our success, our pleasure, our happiness . . . and we don’t much care what effect it has on those around us.  We are convinced that it is far more blessed to receive than it is to give.

Because self is at the center of our universe, we find it incredibly difficult to love others and impossible to find contentment.  We are blind to opportunities for serving others but see opportunities for getting ahead with 20/20 vision.  And in the end, even if we get everything we think we wanted, it never delivers on its promises.  By embracing our sinful selfishness we have denied our humanity . . . and are left poor, blind, and naked.

But this is not for you!

For in him we live and move and have our being.  (Acts 17:28)

A CHRIST-CENTERED life is living for the One who is life.  We live in Him.  We move in Him.  We have our being in Him.  We find our identity, meaning, and purpose in Him.  Living a Christ-centered life means we care about the things He cares about, even when those things don’t immediately involve us or touch us personally.  With Christ at the center, we live a life that truly matters: a life lived in service to others, not at their expense.

When we journey to the center of our lives and find Christ in His rightful place, we live cross-shaped lives.  We lay our lives down for others and forgiveness flows freely, even to our enemies, because Jesus is the One who is writing our story.  When Jesus is at the center of our lives, He is the source of everything we need in order to do everything He has called us to do.  Our potential is not measured by what we can do, but by what He can do through us.  What we desire to be doing is what He has called us to do; and what He calls us to do is to incarnate His character in all that we think, do, say, and desire.

With Christ at our center we live in the light of eternity.  We live to expand His kingdom, rather than our own kingdom, by surrendering to His authority and rule in our lives.  We love what He loves and hate what He hates.  We no longer live and move and have our being in the pursuit of our own glory, but rather in the pursuit of His glory.  We live as ambassadors for the Almighty and make decisions based on what pleases Him, rather than what pleasures us.  Keeping Jesus at the center of our lives keeps our lives centered . . . and when we are living centered lives we are living lives that truly matter.

This is the Gospel.  This is grace for your race.  NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!

The wisdom of the world says we are most free when we do whatever we feel like doing.  “Just follow your heart,” the world whispers seductively, “and you won’t go wrong.” That was the promise Satan made to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden: essentially, “If it feels good, do it!”  You remember how that turned out!

The Word of God warns us that this kind of license does not lead to freedom, but to slavery.  It is a counterfeit freedom that erodes your mind, empties your heart, and enslaves your will.  Real freedom is a life that has been liberated from the love of the self—idolatry—and redirected to the love of our Savior—glorious, unimaginable freedom!

You were called to freedom, brothers.  Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh . . .   (Galatians 5:13)

Counterfeit freedom promises a life of purpose and peace . . . control and comfort . . . affirmation and accomplishment; but it simply will not deliver the goods!  Sure, for a while you might feel good about yourself; you may believe you are truly free.  But before too long, you inevitably realize that you are locked inside a prison of idolatry, addiction, and degrees of dependence upon the very things that had glibly promised you independence.  The life these idols promised is sucked right out of you, leaving you empty, anxious, and wanting.

Only the Gospel can reorient the direction of our hearts away from self and toward our Savior.  Only the Gospel can free us from the tyranny of living for something smaller than Jesus and empower us to rise above the false promises of freedom the world dangles before us.  Only a clear view of the truths of the Gospel can make the attraction of our idols less attractive!  You see, the Gospel has already given to us everything these idols promised to give but cannot deliver:

• Approval
• Acceptance
• Meaning
• Significance
• Purpose
• Peace
• Forgiveness
• Fulfillment
• Success
• Contentment
• Comfort
• Happiness
• Joy

The list of blessings, of course, is endless because the love we have been given by God in Christ is endless.   “The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ . . .  has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ” (Ephesians 1:3-4 NIV).  Everything we desire we already have in Jesus.  And because Jesus has secured for us everything we need, we can forsake every false god and fix our eyes upon the One who loved us more than we could ever love ourselves.  That God-sized void that yawns inside of each one of us was never designed to be filled by anything smaller than God.  God simply loves us too much to let us find soul-satisfaction in some worthless baubles that exist outside of our relationship to Him.

For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

(Ephesians 3:14-19)

The only real freedom is found in Jesus.  When Christ is dwelling in our hearts through faith, our lives are rightly centered.  A centered life is grounded on the Rock and will not be shaken by the winds and the waves of worldly wisdom.  Because of the love we have in Christ, we are no longer condemned for our sin . . . and when that truth sinks in, we live a freedom that truly makes us free.

This is the Gospel.  This is grace for your race.  NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!

If God posted an ad on one of those career builder/jobs.com web sites, do you know what it would look like?  Do you know the kind of person He would be looking for to do the job He has for them to do?  Well, God already posted His want ad, long before these sites became popular, and He posted it in His Scriptures.

The eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to give strong support to those whose heart is blameless toward him.  (2 Chronicles 16:9)

In God’s want ad, we see that He identifies only one qualification for employment in His work: a heart that is blameless.  In the Old Testament, the concept of blamelessness brought with it two different but not dissimilar ideas:

1^st – Sacrificial animals without defect: “If his offering is a burnt offering from the herd, he shall offer a male without blemish” (Leviticus 1:3).  Only unblemished animals were worthy of being sacrificed to the Lord.

2^nd – Blameless people who cannot be accused of wrongdoing: “He who walks blamelessly and does what is right and speaks truth in his heart.”  (Psalm 15:2)

In the New Testament, the concept of blamelessness is rooted in the character of Christ and His followers:

1^st – Christ Himself: “It was indeed fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, innocent, unstained, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens.”  (Hebrews 7:26)

2^nd – Disciples of Christ: “Even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.”  (Ephesians 1:4)

Those who are disciples of Christ are blameless in the sight of God because they are clothed in His righteousness.  The blamelessness of Christ has been imputed to all who have trusted in His atoning work on their behalf.  Christian, when God looks at you He sees Jesus, so He sees perfection!  Yet in everyday experience, disciples of Christ do everything imperfectly, and we still do many things that are blameworthy.  So while we are already blameless in the sight of God because of what Jesus has done on our behalf, we are being made blameless through the transforming power of the Holy Spirit.  And, of course, that transformation will not be completed until we pass into glory.

So for the purposes of today’s message, a blameless heart is a heart that is sold out for God.  It is a heart that beats for the things that God’s heart beats for and is broken by the things that break God’s heart.  Notice what God’s “cosmic classified” does not identify as qualifications for employment in His work in this world: